The soldiers lifted Alexander to his feet, but he was unconscious and they had to carry him on a litter to a temporary campsite. Seleucos had leapt on his horse as soon as he got out of the city and had ridden to fetch Usse and me. Nobody else dared touch Alexander. This probably saved his life.
When we got to the place where the camp had been set up, my heart nearly stopped. There was a crowd around the tent, milling aimlessly, and everyone was wailing and keening. The storm I’d felt all day was building in the north, huge dark clouds roiled on the horizon, and the air burned my throat.
I threw myself off my horse, fell in the dust then scrabbled to my feet. ‘Where is he?’ I cried, my voice breaking.
Usse was calmer than I. He’d heard Seleucos’s recital, and he’d already formed an idea of what the wound was like. First he washed his hands and made me do the same. Usse was now a firm believer in germs, and he took great pains to foil the ‘micro-monsters’ as he called them.
Alexander lay on a table. He was conscious, but looked awful. He panted, and I could see the pulse in his throat. It was like a sparrow’s heartbeat. Each time he took a breath, it was with a little groan. An arrow was planted deeply in his chest. Even I could see that this was serious.
There existed a story, a rumour that Alexander had, in fact, died in India, and that the man who came back at the head of his army was a stand-in. It was a wild story, but the people in a certain region in India claimed Alexander was buried near their town in an ancient temple.
As I remembered that, there came a loud rumble of thunder. Usse glanced uneasily at the sky and gave curt orders to the soldiers standing behind him to secure the tent against the storm.
Alexander opened his eyes and gazed at me. His breathing made a ‘huh, huh, huh’ noise. It was painful to hear.
I took his hand and kissed it. ‘I’m right here,’ I said softly.
Standing around him were Perdiccas, Plexis, and Ptolemy Lagos. They had tears on their cheeks; their faces were tragic.
Alexander’s eyes were dark with pain. The pupils hid the iris, and I wasn’t sure he’d even heard me. Then faintly his hand squeezed mine. Even this small effort made sweat pop out on his brow. He trembled.
Usse stood still, assessing the wound, touching Alexander’s neck, his wrists, and his head lightly. Then he looked at me and said, ‘We have no choice. We must pull the arrow straight out.’
Alexander closed his eyes. I felt the blood leave my face. The arrow was deeply embedded. It had certainly hit something vital.
We got to work. First we had to cut off his armour. We stripped him and laid a muslin sheet over his lower body. The arrow had pinned his armour to his chest, so all we could do was cut around it – without moving the arrow. Usse was very firm about that. Then we carefully lifted the armour off, sliding it from under his back.
Immediately, Usse sluiced Alexander’s body with water mixed with an antiseptic and cleaned the skin around the wound. Afterwards, he prepared a poultice with herbs and the mould. He had to pull the arrow out, and he had to be quick – if air got into the chest cavity, the lung would collapse, and Alexander would die within minutes. Usse positioned the spreaders and clamps. Everything had to be done at the same time.
We looked at each other. Alexander sensed it was time. He tightened his grip on my hand. I bent down and kissed him on the lips. I whispered into his ear, ‘You don’t die in India.’ A faint smile flickered across his lips.
Usse’s assistant actioned the spreader, and Usse yanked the arrow out of Alexander’s chest.
There was a fountain of blood and air bubbles as well. The lung had been punctured. Usse flung the arrow behind him and slapped the poultice with the mould on the wound, pressing as hard as he could. Then he stretched a piece of fine leather bandage across Alexander’s chest. The bandage had been made from a membrane peeled from the hide of an ox and boiled until it was soft. It covered Alexander’s chest, sealing off the wound so that no air could get in. Wide bands of linen held it in place. After, Usse spread melted wax over everything.
I didn’t take my eyes from Alexander’s throat where his pulse beat erratically. Then the heartbeat disappeared. His body grew strangely limp. His eyes opened, but they were devoid of life. I recoiled instinctively from the horror of death. Then I sank to my knees and looked up at the sky just visible through the top of the tent.
‘Please,’ I whispered. ‘Let him live. I need him. I love him. He still has two more years to live – just two more years. Let me have them, please.’ The sky gave no sign of having heard me. The black clouds gathered and churned. I glanced at my husband, tears obscuring my vision. Suddenly there was a tremor in his body and his pulse beat again. It was still faint, but it meant the shock of having the arrow pulled out had passed.
Shock, as much as the arrow, nearly killed Alexander. We stood at his side, holding the bandages in place for nearly an hour. Finally, his cheeks turned pink again and the blue faded from his lips. He was still unconscious though. We carefully wrapped another bandage around him. When it was in place and Usse was sure no air could get in, he stepped back with a huge sigh.
‘I have done what I can. Now his life is in the hands of the gods.’
I looked down at my husband. His eyes were open. He tried to say something, but the effort was too much for him. A rictus of pain crossed his face, and he passed out again.
For three days he hovered between life and death. His will to live was stronger than death, though. His body burned with fever, but perhaps the heat killed the germs or the mould did work. Whatever the reason, his wound, although nearly mortal, didn’t become infected.
Nearchus had brought the boat back upriver, with Chiron, Brazza, and Axiom aboard. I didn’t sleep there. I was too frightened for Alexander. I stayed next to him, leaving him only long enough to nurse Chiron.
Chapter Twenty-Two
After three days, we carried him to the boat and sailed down the river. Even the slight rocking movement of the boat caused his wound to ache, and his breathing was harsh groans by the time we arrived at the camp.
His soldiers had lined up on the banks of the river. They stayed silent as Nearchus manoeuvred the boat towards the dock. As we glided up, I could hear a high-pitched wailing. My skin prickled. It was Roxanne. She rushed along the river’s edge, keeping pace with the boat. She had smeared her face with ashes. I realized that she believed Alexander was dead.
I said to Plexis, ‘Keep her away. You’re the only one who can stop her. The silly bitch will throw herself across his body. If he is jarred it will kill him.’
He glanced at Alexander and leapt onto the shore, intercepting Roxanne.
‘No,’ he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘You mustn’t touch him. He’s not dead, just grievously injured. Go back to your tent, pray to your gods, and make sacrifices. That is all we can do for now.’
The army sacrificed to the gods, they chanted and prayed. And they talked about the huge storm that had raged but hadn’t shed a single drop of water on the tent where Alexander lay wounded.
The storm had been an electrical heat storm. Huge black clouds had cast flickering blue and green lightning back and forth in the sky. Then gigantic reddish lightning bolts fell to the ground. The air around us crackled and sparked. Our hair stood on end and the metal tips on the spears glowed. St. Elmo’s fire ran up and down the tent poles, and the men hid their eyes and wailed in fear.
Usse had seen the fire before, so he wasn’t frightened. But hardly anyone else knew what it was. I knew, of course, but I’d never actually seen it and was startled. I didn’t fall to my knees and scream though. I was beyond that. I had believed Alexander would die.
For three days and nights I didn’t sleep. None of us did. We watched as Alexander struggled to live. We prayed, we cried, then we stopped crying and stood numbly, while Usse kept the fires burning in the brazier and boiled water.
Usse felt useful as long as he was fighting germs. He made tonics for Alexa
nder to drink, and every time he woke up Usse spooned hot broth into his mouth, though most of the time he couldn’t swallow it. His body seemed to waste away. His ribs and his cheekbones pressed against his hot skin. He moaned in his sleep, sometimes delirious, sometimes lucid. When he was lucid he thought he was dying.
We stayed for a week in the encampment. Every day the soldiers lined up outside the tent and asked to see Alexander. They were grief-stricken. Roxanne and Onesicrite claimed he was dead.
I refused to let Roxanne visit Alexander. I wouldn’t even let her cross the river. I was insane with worry, exhaustion, and grief. However, the soldiers grew fearful. They insisted on seeing their leader. Craterus, Ptolemy Lagos, Plexis, Leonnatus, and Perdiccas were allowed to see Alexander. They tried to tell their soldiers that he was slowly recuperating, but that his wound was still life-threatening and he couldn’t be moved. The men disbelieved them. They muttered fearfully that Alexander had died, and that we were hiding the truth.
Finally, Alexander heard the men’s cries. He was propped up in bed, drinking hot broth, but still not eating anything. His breathing caused him pain. His colour was still bad, and any effort made his lips turn grey. He decided to mount his warhorse and ride along the edge of the river to show himself to his men.
I nearly had hysterics, but Usse calmed me. He understood Alexander. Perhaps he was the only man who ever truly did.
He had the horse drugged so that there was no way that he would make the slightest jarring movement when the men started to cheer. Because cheer they did. When they saw Alexander sitting on his horse, they wore out their voices screaming.
Plexis and Perdiccas walked on either side of Alexander, surreptitiously holding onto his legs. Seleucos held the horse’s bridle and Usse walked behind, watching Alexander with his dark, piercing eyes, his narrow face solemn, but, at the same time, proud.
After an hour, Alexander started to slump in the saddle and was taken quickly back to his bed. The wound had started bleeding again. Blood was visible under the bandage, but Usse wouldn’t remove it until he was sure the lung was sealed off.
I was sure it was going to get infected. I thought the mould would never work, that the arrow had gone too deep, and that Alexander would die. Yet somehow he pulled through those first days and first weeks.
The soldier Plexis had brought to us was in the infirmary recuperating. He was doing well. Usse took off his bandage and we marvelled at the healthy, pink skin around the wound. Usse pressed it carefully; there was no sign of heat or redness. It hadn’t gotten infected. We stared at each other, hope in our eyes. What if that mould was the right one? We hardly dared say it out loud.
At last Usse decided to unwrap Alexander’s bandages. We lay him carefully on a table and Usse prepared a new poultice with the mould. He peeled the bandage from Alexander’s chest and cautiously washed the wound. It was a deep, angry-looking thing that disappeared between two ribs and plunged straight into his chest. However, it wasn’t full of pus, as Usse had feared. It was not pretty, but it seemed to be healing slowly. Usse put a new poultice on it, and from then on changed it every day. He still put a piece of thin leather and wax over it though. We sailed down the river until we came to a place where two rivers joined, and here we rested for nearly four months while Alexander recuperated.
The countryside was pretty, with gentle hills, and the weather stayed clement. Alexander founded another city, calling it the City of the Confluence, or sometimes, the City of Tears.
We were not sad here but I cried often. To have almost lost Alexander only made me dread the future more.
That year, I celebrated Christmas with the people in my tent. I had little presents for everyone, sang Christmas carols, and lit some beeswax candles. I’d decorated the tent in red and green, the traditional colours of Christmas. It was actually a month after Christmas, but Alexander was finally well enough to move around, and I needed to celebrate. I wanted to give the people I loved a gift, but I didn’t know exactly what. I knew that stories were greatly appreciated in this time. What really would have knocked them out would have been a holographic DVD player with a fantastic film. Failing that, I decided to tell the story of King Arthur.
I was not a particularly good storyteller. I knew I wasn’t very good, so I didn’t try to embellish. I simply used my memory, which was sharp and clear, to recite the story as I’d read it.
When I was finished, there was a deep silence. I had been speaking for what seemed like hours. The fire had gone out in the brazier and the only light came from the moon. Chiron snored softly in Brazza’s arms, and Axiom sat cross-legged on the rug, his chin in his hands.
Alexander, to whom the story had been dedicated, was motionless. He had not asked a single question, unlike Plexis who hadn’t stopped interrupting.
I’d answered all his questions: ‘What was the idea of chivalry?’; ‘What was a joust?’; ‘Why didn’t Merlin tell Arthur that Morgan was his sister?’; ‘Couldn’t Arthur and Lancelot just share Guinevere?’ Plexis wanted to understand everything. He was upset when he heard that King Arthur was killed in battle and his sword lost in the lake. He’d been fascinated when I came to the part about the sword in the stone and the singing light coming down over young Arthur.
‘Can you tell me that part again?’ he asked, when I’d finished the tale. ‘What was the singing light?’
Alexander stirred and said clearly, ‘I saw a light like that.’
We gaped at him. He smiled. ‘When I was lying on the table and Usse said he was going to pull the arrow out, I knew I was dying. My life’s blood would leave me and I would die. Then Ashley leaned over me and said, ‘You don’t die in India.’’
This statement caused quite a stir in the audience. Usse glanced sharply at me and Plexis drew his breath in with a hiss.
Axiom clapped his hands. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I remember clearly when you said that,’ Alexander said, speaking to me. ‘I smiled. You kissed me. I thought the last thing I would feel was the touch of your lips, and I was almost happy.’
He reached and took my hand. ‘And then there came a pain like never I had felt before. The arrow tore out of my chest and hurt so much I passed out. Everything went black, and I remember feeling only relief. The pain had gone. I was dead. There came a white light. Cleaner, brighter, more beautiful than any light I’ve ever seen. It was pure light, untainted by any colours at all. That light made me realize that the sun’s illumination is just a poor imitation of real light. Even the word “light” has nothing to do with what I saw. It was soft and I could feel it touch me. It flowed like water around me and seemed to fill my veins. I found myself floating in the air. I know you won’t believe me, but I could see all of you. You were bending over me, holding something on my chest, and I was suddenly shocked to see my own body.
‘I looked at myself. I could sense the part of me that was floating, and it was made of the light. It was pure, and I was filled with wonder. My body lying on the table was covered with blood and was soiled. It was made of clay. I had a feeling of revulsion for my own body, but was incapable of detaching my gaze from it. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t dead. I could perceive a faint pulse beating in that body of clay, and that pulse was like a chain that kept me from floating away. I found myself wishing the pulse would stop, because I could sense the pain that waited for me in that ruined body. I say “ruined” because I could see each scar, each broken bone, and each hurt I’d ever suffered as if they were freshly made. My whole body was nothing but a battlefield. Then you looked up, Ashley. You looked up and stared right at me. I saw your lips move. You said, “Please. Let him live. I need him. I love him. Give me just the time that’s left, please.”.’
I stared at him. He was still smiling. My lips were cold. I felt faint. I did remember, but I hadn’t said that, exactly.
‘And then the light disappeared and the blackness came to claim me. The blackness and the pain. I didn’t want to return to the body I’d seen. After b
eing part of that light, my body was cold and mundane. I hated it. But I returned. Because you asked me to,’ he said, looking straight at me. ‘I thought I would hate you when the pain washed over me. Feeling my body around me again was like drowning in mud.
‘But I had to return. Because the only thing that remotely feels or looks like that amazing light I saw is love. It’s as simple as that. Was that what King Arthur had to learn before he died?’
My own smile twisted my mouth awry, and my face was wet with tears. ‘I don’t know. I hope that’s part of what the story’s trying to teach us. I’ll have to tell you the story of Jesus some day. He was another man who wanted to show us that love could save the world.’
‘Well, maybe it did,’ said Alexander thoughtfully. ‘Maybe, in a way, it did.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alexander slept without any sleeping draught that night. The pain that had plagued him for weeks was ebbing. He was still weak, but he was getting better. Each day saw him stronger. And, like most active people, he started to chafe and fret at being cooped up in bed.
‘I want to see the new city,’ he said.
‘No, you have to rest.’ I was firm. We were facing each other over the chessboard. Alexander was winning, but it didn’t seem to matter.
‘I am tired of sitting in bed,’ he said and tossed the chessboard to the floor.
‘Oh, stop being such a baby.’ I picked up the pieces all the while conscious of his glare. I brushed my hands on my robe and crossed my arms. ‘All right. Out with it.’
‘With what?’ He looked wary now.
‘Something is bothering you. I know what it is, but I won’t say anything until you do.’
‘If you know what it is, then you know why I’m upset!’ he cried. He stopped shouting and ran his hands through his hair. ‘And you know I can’t tell you about it. You already told me you’d never talk to me about my future.’
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